The Telemetron Orchestra

Contributors | Nicole L’Huillier, Sands Fish, Thomas Sanchez Lengeling

When contemplating the future of life in space, we dream not only of rockets and off-world societies, but also of art, of leisure, and frequently of music. Human life in space will be not only operational, but also sensual and emotional. In order to explore this future, Nicole L’Huillier, Sands Fish, and Thomas Sanchez Lengeling built the Telemetron Orchestra, a collection of novel musical instruments designed explicitly to be performed in microgravity.

Born from speculation and microgravity experimentation, the Telemetrons take advantage of the poetics of the weightless environment to create a musical performance based on motion in space. The instruments are equal parts device and sculpture. They are both kinetic and aesthetic experiments, as well as explorations of interaction design in an environment where the gravitational rules we are used to do not apply.

This work continues, exploring unique forms conducive to performance in the microgravity environment, and novel ways to capture micro-gravitational movements in order to expand cultural expression as we spend more and more time in space. Because a core motivation of this work is to inspire and enable diversity in the exploration of this cultural frontier, and because it is currently a privilege to have access to the means of experimentation, L'Huillier, Fish, and Sanchez Lengeling are building an open hardware platform to make it easier for future musicians to build experiments that leverage telemetry to create music.

News & Publications

Fish, Sands, and Nicole L’Huillier. "Telemetron: a musical instrument for performance in zero gravity." In Proceedings of NIME Conference, Blacksburg, USA, pp. 315-317, 2018. [Online] Available: https://www.nime.org/proceedings/2018/nime2018_paper0066.pdf

Space pianos and upside-down shoes: innovations for life in space (CBC News)